with his parents on the subject of his former existence, and would often say to them: "I want to go to Hodokubo. Please let me make a visit to the tomb of Kyubei San." Genzo thought that Katsugoro, being a strange child, would probably die before long, and that it might therefore be better to make inquiry at once as to whether there really was a man in Hodokubo called Hanshiro. But he did not wish to make the inquiry himself, because for a man to do so [under such circumstances?] would seem inconsiderate or forward. Therefore, instead of going himself to Hodokubo, he asked his mother Tsuya, on the twentieth day of the first mouth of this year, to take her grandson there.

Tsuya went with Katsugoro to Hodokubo; and when they entered the village she pointed to the nearer dwellings, and asked the boy, "Which house is it?--is it this house or that one?" "No," answered Katsugoro,--"it is further on--much further,"--and he hurried before her. Reaching a certain dwelling at last, he cried, "This is the house!"--and ran in, without waiting for his grandmother. Tsuya followed him in, and asked the people

there what was the name of the owner of the house. "Hanshiro," one of them answered. She asked the name of Hanshiro's wife. "Shidzu," was the reply. Then she asked whether there had ever been a son called Tozo born in that house. "Yes," was the answer; "but that boy died thirteen years ago, when he was six years old."

Then for the first time Tsuya was convinced that Katsugoro had spoken the truth; and she could not help shedding tears. She related to the people of the house all that Katsugoro had told her about his remembrance of his former birth. Then Hanshiro and his wife wondered greatly. They caressed Katsugoro and wept; and they remarked that he was much handsomer now than he had been as Tozo before dying at the age of six. In the mean time, Katsugoro was looking all about; and seeing the roof of a tobacco shop opposite to the house of Hanshiro, he pointed to it, and said:--"That used not to be there." And he also said,--"The tree yonder used not to be there." All this was true. So from the minds of Hanshiro and his wife every doubt departed [ga wo orishi].

On the same day Tsuya and Katsugoro returned to Tanitsuiri, Nakano-mura. Afterwards Genzo sent his son several times to Hanshiro's house, and allowed him to visit the tomb of Kyubei his real father in his previous existence.

Sometimes Katsugoro says:--"I am a Nono-Sama:[1] therefore please be kind to me." Sometimes he also says to his grandmother:--"I think I shall die when I am sixteen; but, as Ontake Sama[2] has taught us,